Maya Light Types

In Maya, there are several light types: ambient, directional, point, spot, and area light. Before going further, the following renders will show their differences and how they function.

Ambient Light
Ambient light is like a light that strikes an object from every direction. The ambient shade attribute controls how the light strike the surface of an object, in this case, the ambient shade is 0.8. Raytraced shadows are supported only. Ambient light flatten the look of the final image, thus it is not ideal while producing photo-realistic results.

Directional Light
Directional light is a light that is emanating from an infinitely great distance, resulting in parallel rays, like the sun, and does not decay. It is useful for lighting vast areas in a scene, and is really suitable to recreate sunlight and moonlight.

Spot Light
The most useful of all light as it illuminates a cone-shaped volume with the source at the tip, and having 2 attributes that control how the edge of the light tapers off.

Point Light
Point light emits omnidirectional light from a single point in space. It is useful for simulating their sources such as candles and incandescent light bulbs.

Area Light
When use effectively, area light can simulate light from fluorescent tubes and panels, or bounce cards.

Volume Light
Volume light is one that is useful to light a specific area. (see maya help for better rendered pix).